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Pulp sales discussion thread
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357 posts in this topic

On 12/11/2021 at 3:51 AM, waaaghboss said:

What I bought

Screenshot_20211211-014646_eBay.thumb.jpg.a0fc8f57000e71731495dbd42f99eb71.jpg

What i got.

20211211_014806.thumb.jpg.02fda226d5766ec0577d8eb83da68633.jpg

I need to stop trying to save a buck and stick with actual pulp sellers :facepalm:

Man, I'm sorry to see this.  I've been there.  Recently.  This looks like a clear bait and switch to me, FWIW.

One of the tougher things I've run into collecting magazines that most don't consider collectible (non-comic, non-pulp), is that people ship them in all manner of packaging.  I've received a Detective/Crime mag where the guy cut 2 pieces of cardboard to the exact size of the book and then sandwiched the magazine between them.  And wrapped the whole perimeter with high adhesive duct tape... It was impossible to get out without damaging the book.  And of course the duct tape tore most of the spine off along with pieces of the body and cover around the rest.  It looked to be high grade from the photos when I bought it.  Less so, when I finally got it out.  

I'm with SA, send that puppy back.  Tell them you want the other one.  :sumo:

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On 12/11/2021 at 7:31 PM, Randall Dowling said:

Man, I'm sorry to see this.  I've been there.  Recently.  This looks like a clear bait and switch to me, FWIW.

One of the tougher things I've run into collecting magazines that most don't consider collectible (non-comic, non-pulp), is that people ship them in all manner of packaging.  I've received a Detective/Crime mag where the guy cut 2 pieces of cardboard to the exact size of the book and then sandwiched the magazine between them.  And wrapped the whole perimeter with high adhesive duct tape... It was impossible to get out without damaging the book.  And of course the duct tape tore most of the spine off along with pieces of the body and cover around the rest.  It looked to be high grade from the photos when I bought it.  Less so, when I finally got it out.  

I'm with SA, send that puppy back.  Tell them you want the other one.  :sumo:

Or, at least tell him you want the copy in the first picture. :butbutbutemoji:

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On 12/12/2021 at 1:56 PM, Joshua33 said:

Which one was the July of 38 copy? I didn't see that one. Was it Horror Stories?

Oops terror tales, I always mix the two up.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/TERROR-TALES-Pulp-Magazine-Bizarre-Torture-Cover-Art-July-August-1938-FINE-/224714291716?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&_trksid=p2349624.m46890.l6249&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0

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On 12/12/2021 at 2:59 PM, waaaghboss said:

Ah. Thanks. I ended up buying 4 books from that guys auction. He had some killer stuff, but it wasn't cheap. So, although I had my eye on that one too, I did not end up with it. Had to pick and choose my battles.

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On 12/12/2021 at 3:05 PM, Joshua33 said:

Ah. Thanks. I ended up buying 4 books from that guys auction. He had some killer stuff, but it wasn't cheap. So, although I had my eye on that one too, I did not end up with it. Had to pick and choose my battles.

Yah, some very healthy sales.  I was a little  surprised at some of the prices like the jungles, and that shadow with the nails in the face mask would make me nervous at that price with what was going on in the back top left corner.  Be sure to post which books you won, looking forward to seeing them on here. 

Edited by waaaghboss
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On 12/12/2021 at 3:25 PM, waaaghboss said:

Yah, some very healthy sales.  I was a little  surprised at some of the prices like the jungles, and that shadow with the nails in the face mask would make me nervous at that price with what was going on in the back top left corner.  Be sure to post which books you won, looking forward to seeing them on here. 

The nails in the face mask is a Spider, not a Shadow. I did grab the Hobo Army Spider, but not the Satan's Sightless cover. It was a nice copy, though. Whomever grabbed it, I think they got a great deal.

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On 12/14/2021 at 8:22 PM, waaaghboss said:

12k for this sharp copy on commicconnect.  The under copy went for 10.5k.  I got 5 really rough spicy western stories for 8 bucks :takeit:

 

*edit* forgot buyers premium. 13800.

wei20_726.thumb.jpg.b6d6354bc7c83b062c68b58574b3b8c2.jpg

 I was watching several of them, mostly the Brundage ones. The final numbers on the two Oct. 1933 copies were just nuts. Yeah its a cool cover but the other Weird Tales Brundages mostly sold in the 500 to 600 dollars range. Huge difference. 

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On 12/14/2021 at 9:52 PM, Joshua33 said:

My point is, yes, pulps are currently exploding, but... buyer Beware to whomever is paying these ludicrous prices for a fairly common Weird Tales cover. This is not the Action 1 of pulps. Far from it...

It may be the Suspense 3 of Pulps, though.  An iconic cover- probably the most famous- by the artist considered by many the definitive cover artist of the era.

Edited by OtherEric
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Totally agree with your points, and had to chuckle, as I've also compared it to Suspense 3... most iconic cover with nothing else going on. 

Here's my issue with that argument...

Iconic Cover... check!!!

When we start saying "considered by most" the iconic cover artist of the era... we're uneducated or lying.

Brundage is cool, but the majority of her value is from her attachment to Howard and Conan. She had the breadth of that WT run. Are her covers top notch? In my opinion... Saunders, Ward, Bolles, Parkhurst, DeSoto and Rozen absolutely DESTROY her artwork from many perspectives. For God's sake, the most important Conan cover isn't even hers (St. John).

The cover to Suspense 3 is done by Xela... and it's very early and great. Schomburg is inarguably a top 3 golden age artist... Brundage... a matter of taste... and EXTREMELY poor anatomy in my opinion. 

Edited by Joshua33
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On 12/14/2021 at 10:56 PM, Joshua33 said:

Totally agree with your points, and had to chuckle, as I've also compared it to Suspense 3... most iconic cover with nothing else going on. 

Here's my issue with that argument...

Iconic Cover... check!!!

When we start saying "considered by most" the iconic cover artist of the era... we're uneducated or lying.

Brundage is cool, but the majority of her value is from her attachment to Howard and Conan. She had the breadth of that WT run. Are her covers top notch? In my opinion... Saunders, Ward, Bolles, Parkhurst, DeSoto and Rozen absolutely DESTROY her artwork from many perspectives. For God's sake, the most important Conan cover isn't even hers (St. John).

The cover to Suspense 3 is done by Xela... and it's very early and great. Schomburg is inarguably a top 3 golden age artist... Brundage... a matter of taste... and EXTREMELY poor anatomy in my opinion. 

I didn't say "most", I said "many".  And I said "definitive", which isn't the same as best.  But, for better or worse, her covers are what a lot of people think of when they think "pulp art".  I would even agree this is somewhat circular, she gets rolled out often as the definitive artist, so a lot of people who were not previously familiar with pulps have her as their first encounter with pulp art, and then they bring her up when they introduce others to the genre.  I also think being iconic and being best have absolutely nothing to do with each other.

I personally think Finlay and Bok were better WT cover artists, myself.  I love Brundage's covers for what they are... but recognize very much the limitations.

Also, I personally think both the Suspense 3 and Weird Tales Batwoman cover are overrated.  Neither are the book I would choose if I could pick one issue of the respective run for my own collection.

I think we are both largely in agreement with one another, we're just trying to refine how we're presenting our case.

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I don't disagree with any of that other than the word extremely. Her depiction of Conan was not that good I'll say. I think she drew the female form pretty well, especially the faces. I know her covers were in the 30's but she did a good job portraying that 20's and 30's female look I think. Some covers were clearly better in an artistic viewpoint than others. I also like her use of colors in a lot of her work. I'm pretty far from an art expert but I think these two show her talent as an artist. 

https://pulpcovers.com/tag/margaretbrundage/

26667802-lf.jpg

35925419-Golden_Fleece_pulp_cover_June_1939.jpg

Edited by Professor K
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On 12/15/2021 at 2:17 AM, OtherEric said:

 

Also, I personally think both the Suspense 3 and Weird Tales Batwoman cover are overrated.  Neither are the book I would choose if I could pick one issue of the respective run for my own collection.

 

I think most of the interest of Suspense 3 is because of the KKK Nazi cover as many people love that stuff. Me personally think war propaganda should have been left out of comics aimed mainly at kids to read. But Suspense 3, at least to me,  is some pretty fine artwork. Better than pretty much anything I can think of that he did for Timely, even some of those awesome Marvel Mystery covers. 

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Thanks for the corrections, I was trying to follow the auctions on my phone so I had a dozen tabs open and must have seen the VF copy at 10k before it ended at 12, and thought it was the second copy ???

I like the cover, but it's not even my favorite WT cover, not even my top 5 WTs.  I was actually going for the suicide chapel, but saw that it was trimmed, so that kind of held me off.   I'm kind of curious how many 30's era WTs are out there.  Seems like a copy or two comes up for sale more often than I would have thought.  Bookery has anything after 32 as somewhat common.

I'm in front of a PC, so I can actually navigate the site.  Here are some the books I was following, and what they ended up going for.

Spoiler

1.thumb.jpg.92c14cd477ac92eea3e42b15101b55ff.jpg

Listed as 5.0, went for 1986.  Great cover.  Are the women on the hooks supposed to be mannequins?  The coloring always throws me off on this one.

1.thumb.jpg.95ac1255c9d5281602ec9eae3d6ec23d.jpg

356.  If this was on the cover of a comic book...

1.thumb.jpg.87f564efa01d5febd41dfa73fb9aeb11.jpg

1667.  Listed as F\VF.  I love early sci fi covers on these runs.

 

 

 

 

Edited by waaaghboss
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On 12/15/2021 at 12:38 AM, waaaghboss said:

Thanks for the corrections, I was trying to follow the auctions on my phone so I had a dozen tabs open and must have seen the VF copy at 10k before it ended at 12, and thought it was the second copy ???

I like the cover, but it's not even my favorite WT cover, not even my top 5 WTs.  I was actually going for the suicide chapel, but saw that it was trimmed, so that kind of held me off.   I'm kind of curious how many 30's era WTs are out there.  Seems like a copy or two comes up for sale more often than I would have thought.  Bookery has anything after 32 as somewhat common.

I'm in front of a PC, so I can actually navigate the site.  Here are some the books I was following, and what they ended up going for.

  Hide contents

1.thumb.jpg.92c14cd477ac92eea3e42b15101b55ff.jpg

Listed as 5.0, went for 1986.  Great cover.  Are the women on the hooks supposed to be mannequins?  The coloring always throws me off on this one.

1.thumb.jpg.95ac1255c9d5281602ec9eae3d6ec23d.jpg

356.  If this was on the cover of a comic book...

1.thumb.jpg.87f564efa01d5febd41dfa73fb9aeb11.jpg

1667.  Listed as F\VF.  I love early sci fi covers on these runs.

 

 

 

 

Yeah, that Spider "butcher" cover is my favorite of the run. That issue is kicking butt at auction recently. For good reason. 

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On 12/14/2021 at 11:17 PM, OtherEric said:

I didn't say "most", I said "many".  And I said "definitive", which isn't the same as best.  But, for better or worse, her covers are what a lot of people think of when they think "pulp art".  I would even agree this is somewhat circular, she gets rolled out often as the definitive artist, so a lot of people who were not previously familiar with pulps have her as their first encounter with pulp art, and then they bring her up when they introduce others to the genre.  I also think being iconic and being best have absolutely nothing to do with each other.

I personally think Finlay and Bok were better WT cover artists, myself.  I love Brundage's covers for what they are... but recognize very much the limitations.

Also, I personally think both the Suspense 3 and Weird Tales Batwoman cover are overrated.  Neither are the book I would choose if I could pick one issue of the respective run for my own collection.

I think we are both largely in agreement with one another, we're just trying to refine how we're presenting our case.

Agreed. It's difficult for me to fall in love with her stuff, which is a bummer because I am an absolute Conan junkie. Looking back, it was probably the first artist I was introduced to in pulps. That's probably why I didn't care for them for so long. 

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